(A Scientific American Book Club Selection) Here, geochemist Bill Green—also the author of Water, Ice & Stone, winner of a John Burroughs Award for Nature Writing and a finalist for the PEN/Martha Albrand Award—interweaves the story of his work in the Antarctic and his evolution as a scientist with a history of science. Along with lyrical meditations on the beleaguered Galileo, the wildly eccentric Tycho Brahe, and the visionary Sir Isaac Newton, Green's ruminations return throughout to the lesser-known figure of Ludwig Boltzmann, whose theories of randomness and entropy serve as a larger metaphor for the unpredictable paths that our lives take.

"This wonderful scientific memoir captures the romance and beauty of research in precise poetic prose that is as gorgeous and evocative as anything written by Rilke, painted by Seurat, or played by Casals."—Mary Doria Russell

"A radiant love letter to science from a scientist with a poet's soul.... Green is an exquisite writer, and his fierce focus and mastery of style are reminiscent of the biologist and essayist Lewis Thomas."—Kirkus Reviews